While in high school in the UK, Kate Mallichan attended a Women in Engineering summer program at Bristol University. “I was really interested in math and science,” she recalls, “but at that point I wasn’t sure what sort of career I wanted to have. Then one of the places we visited was Bristol’s Computer Science department, and it really clicked with me that this was what I wanted to do.” Mallichan subsequently earned a MEng in Computer Science at Bristol before gaining experience as a software developer in a wide range of fields – working on Windows mobile devices, developing mission planning software for the Royal Air Force, and creating multi-tier web applications and front-end software for the UK Highway Agency’s traffic monitoring systems. Two years ago, she was hired by HP Labs to work on the European BonFIRE Cloud testbed project, and then just recently she became one of HPL’s newest full-time hires, working in the organization’s Security and Cloud Lab in Bristol. We caught up with her recently to learn more about her research and other interests.

HP: What first got you interested in computers?

I think it started in elementary school. I remember playing games on the really old computers we had there and I was really drawn to it. Then, at secondary school, I learned BASIC using books I borrowed from the library and I realized that computers can help you do an awful lot of things. I started to make text-based games and do things like put passwords on my discs – it was exciting to see how they could help you both be in control and creative.

Theo Koulouris is a post-doctoral researcher in HP’s Security and Cloud Lab in Bristol, working on issues surrounding security, trust, and accountability in the cloud. Before joining HP in 2011, Koulouris received his Ph.D. in electronic and electrical engineering from University College, London (UCL), where he specialized in topics related to computer networking. Prior to that, he received an MPhil in electronic and electrical engineering from UCL and studied for a Bachelor of Engineering in telecommunications at Queen Mary University of London. A native of the Greek island of Corfu, Koulouris also enjoys playing the guitar, composing music, and creating his own guitar effects pedals.

HP: What attracted you to working at HP Labs?

I was interested in moving away from academia and into a corporate environment because this seemed to be where the exciting things in my field were happening. HP was my first choice among the offers I had – I knew the history of the company, admired how its founders approached the challenges of doing research in computing, and had wanted to work for the company for a while.

At HP Discover Barcelona last month HP Storage blogger and social media strategist Calvin Zito caught up with our strategic planning and communications manager Martina Trucco to talk about the panel discussion that Trucco had just finished moderating about the "Future according to HP Labs."

In the video interview, Trucco discusses some of the highlights from the session in the Innovation Theater that included three HP Labs vice presidents: Jaap Suermondt, director of the Analytics Lab, John Sontag, director of the Systems Research Lab and Martin Sadler, director of the Security and Cloud Lab.

Trucco talks about the work being done at Labs on non-volatile memory and photonics as two foundational technologies for the new computing architecture that HP is buidling. She also highlights the advances being made towards the creation of a universal memory that will allow processing and memory to come together all in one package resulting in much faster transfer of data and greater efficiency.

Massimo Felici joined HP’s Security and Cloud Lab just over a year ago to research issues around accountability, security, and privacy in Europe. Felici grew up on the island of Sicily, where he received his BSc in computer science at the University of Catania. He then served as Reserve Officer in the Italian navy and worked as a researcher at ENEA, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development in Rome, before studying for a PhD in Informatics at the University of Edinburgh in the UK. While in Edinburgh, Felici also worked as a research consultant for small and medium enterprises. “I’ve always been interested in going beyond basic research, in collaborating with industry and investigating technology transfers,” he says.

HP: What’s your main area of research interest?

I started out as a computer scientist, then got more involved in software engineering. At the same time, I started to look at problems that merged into industrial software systems around concepts like dependability, trust, risk, and security. It’s helped me appreciate the complexity inherent in deploying systems and framed my interest in getting complex technical systems and services to function well in real world environments.

An expert in both informatics and design thinking, Dr. Rehab Alnemr grew up in Cairo and received both her bachelor and masters degrees in information technology from Cairo University. She then studied for a Ph.D. in information technology, with an emphasis on trust management and reputation systems, at the Hasso Plattner Institute at the University of Potsdam, Germany, and remained at the institute to work on post-doctoral research and teach in the Hasso Plattner Institute School of Design Thinking. Now a Bristol, UK-based research engineer in HP’s Security and Cloud Lab, Alnemr remains a passionate advocate for applying design thinking to problems in IT.

HP: What have you been working on at HP Labs?

I’m working on a European project called Accountability for the Cloud (A4Cloud), which includes several European partners. I’m responsible for work packages that have to do with trust management and cloud contracts.

Steve Simske is an HP Fellow and Director in the Printing and Content Delivery Lab in Hewlett-Packard Labs, and is the Director and Chief Technologist for the HP Labs Security Printing and Imaging program.